The Tamesis
April 29, 2026
Seoul – The Seoul High Court on Tuesday sentenced former first lady Kim Gun-hee to four years in prison, overturning her acquittal in the Deutsche Auto stock manipulation case and finding her guilty of accepting bribes from the Unification Church.
The appeals court also imposed a fine of 50 million won ($33,900), a heavier sentence than the one year and eight months that Kim was sentenced to in the first trial.
However, the court upheld the acquittal by a lower court and accused Kim of illegally receiving political funds in the form of polling data from a close aide.
In its ruling in the Deutsche Auto stock manipulation case, the appeals court found that King was not just a financier or an aide and abettor, but a co-principal who actively participated in the scheme.
The special prosecutor accused Kim of participating in manipulating Deutsche Auto stocks and obtaining 810 million won in illegal profits from 2010 to 2012. A lower court had previously acquitted her.
In 2024, Deutsche Automobile Chairman Kwon Oh-soo and eight others were sentenced to prison for using more than 150 stock trading accounts under the names of 91 people.
They were found guilty of artificially inflating the company’s stock price by nearly 400% through 101 collusive transactions and 3,083 market manipulation transactions.
The court said Kim Jong-un’s decision to entrust accounts and funds worth about 2 billion won to Black Pearl Investment Company went beyond the scope of ordinary investment activities. Black Pearl Investments is the company that manages gold shares of Deutsche Automotive.
“If the defendant expected that the stock price would rise naturally, she would not have entrusted the company with discretionary trading and agreed to hand over 40% of the profits,” the court said. “It cannot be ruled out that the profit-sharing arrangement was compensation for artificially inflating the stock price.”
The court also said that Kim “not only allowed the stock manipulation group to use large sums of funds and accounts and share profits, but also directly participated in brokering transactions.”
Regarding allegations that Kim Jong Un illegally obtained polling data from close aides, the court held that polling data can constitute political funding if it has significant monetary value.
However, it upheld the acquittal by a lower court, citing a lack of evidence to support the special prosecutor’s assertion that Kim Jong Un and her husband, former President Yun Seok-yeol, had promised in return to help former lawmaker Kim Young-sun secure the party nomination.
The court also pointed out that Kim Jong Un himself did not hold an elected public office and did not directly commission the poll, so it was difficult to conclude that the poll was conducted in a manner that clearly favored Yoon.
Regarding bribery charges involving the Unification Church, an appeals court found two alleged Chanel handbag deals to be corruption, while a lower court found only one.
A lower court found that a Chanel handbag King received did not constitute a bribe, ruling that the alleged terms of exchange were unclear. But the appeals court found Kim guilty of all charges, including two Chanel handbags, ginseng extract tea and a diamond necklace belonging to former Unification Church official Yoon Young-ho.
The court concluded that the purpose of the gifts was for Kim to convey the church’s policy interests to then-presidential candidate Yoon.
“The president’s wife is required to possess a high level of ethics,” the court said in its ruling. “By accepting bribes, the defendants seriously undermined public trust in state institutions and the position of the first lady.”
